I’m still working on the Predictions’ Championship results to make sure all the submissions that were entered manually haven’t been overlooked. I hope to have the results up later today.
Here’s today’s round-up:
Links
Ferrari was advised to let Kubica through (Autosport)
It was obvious to anyone who’s been watching F1 for the last couple of years that Fernando Alonso would have to relinquish the position he gained from Kubica by going off the track at Club. Now it emerges that Ferrari were advised by Charlie Whiting to give up the place straight after Alonso passed Kubica. So why didn’t they?
New Formula One teams to pay a £16m deposit (Evening Standard)
I haven’t had any response from FOM about the details of this story. But it sounds depressingly plausible that Ecclestone might want to go back to the dark days of keeping all but the most well-heeled new entrants out with a new version of the old entry bond.
F1 2010 – sim meets arcade in the best possible way (Gamesradar)
“A real racing driver will never floor the throttle to accelerate from low speed and you’ll need to learn that here. Exiting the right-hander before the tunnel, the car seemed to be straight, so I put pedal to the metal to get ahead of the ghost car. I kept waiting for the tyres to bite, but instead I snaked realistically for 50 yards or so, before finally spinning round. This focus on advanced throttle control is what’s going to make the difference between good laps and great laps. In hindsight, it sounds like I made the most blatant rookie error, but it was my eagerness to get on the gas that was my undoing – so you’re not only battling with the car, but with your own self-control.”
Lewis Hamilton emerging as man to beat (BBC)
“In a weekend when Red Bull created their own divisions about which driver used a faster wing, McLaren pooled their resources on Friday, listened to each of their drivers about the preferred route forward – Button wanted to revert to the old floor, Hamilton wanted to keep the new one – compared it with the data they were seeing on the simulator with test driver Gary Paffett and ended up supporting Button’s view. The standard floor was fitted to both cars for the rest of the weekend but it created no animosity between the drivers and was subsequently proved to be a good call.”
“I have a huge amount of respect for Mark, and he had his own reasons for saying what he did. He clearly felt aggrieved that the team gave Sebastian Vettel his wing prior to qualifying, and he saw an opportunity to turn the situation in his favour by making his feelings plain to the media. That is his prerogative. In many respects, that bloody-minded attitude is what I wish I had shown on the two occasions during my career, at Jerez in 1997 and Melbourne a year later, when I was asked to make way for my McLaren team-mate, Mika Hakkinen.”
Video: The chassis rig (Renault)
Renault’s rig in action.
Comment of the day
It’s a silly joke but it made me laugh…
I was an enthusiastic member of the Kamui Kobayashi Klub before it had to be shut down for some unknown reason.
Nitpicker
From the forum
What are the five best tracks in Formula 1?
From the archive
It occured to me yesterday that the incident Alonso’s Silverstone penalty had most in common with was not Lewis Hamilton’s notorious lost victory at Spa in 2008 but what happened to him at Magny-Cours that same year.
Here’s what I wrote at the time: Pressure on Lewis Hamilton after error in French Grand Prix
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to ryanmack09!
On this day in F1
Ferrari scored their first F1 win on this day in 1951 at Silverstone. Jose Froilan Gonzalez led home Juan Manuel Fangio’s Alfa Romeo by more than 50 seconds.
It was the first of Ferrari’s record 211 F1 wins.
Michael Griffin
14th July 2010, 0:30
This is totally unrelated to the round up but interesting nonetheless.
Everyone believes that Massa’s puncture was caused by Alonso when they touched at Becketts, but it wasn’t, he carried on at full speed with no twitchiness until Abbey, where he had Barrichello on the inside of him.
Its my belief that Massa slightly brushed Barrichello’s front wing on the right-rear tyre (which would correspond with that corner and the inside line), and it had to be very slight as Barrichello’s pace didn’t suffer at all.
If you look back at the race, the first time Massa leaves the track due to the puncture is running across the run-off area at Abbey.
Pointless note but it interested me.
Patrickl
14th July 2010, 1:29
Nope Massa had a deflated tyre quite fast after Alonso and Massa came together for the second time.
Michael Griffin
14th July 2010, 2:37
Go back to the race, you’ll see Massa continuing as normal until Abbey. Alonso was well ahead of him at Abbey.
cyanide (@cyanide)
14th July 2010, 7:13
Takes a few seconds for the tyre to deflate.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
14th July 2010, 9:30
Massa definitely got the puncture in contact with Alonso, it just took longer to manifest itself than Vettel’s did.
The onboard footage from Jenson Button’s car on the first lap doesn’t show any sign of contact between Massa and Barrichello at Abbey.
Also neither Barrichello nor Massa mentioned they’d made contact. Massa blamed his puncture on contact with Alonso – I doubt he’d draw attention to contact with his team mate if it could be blamed on someone else:
See: No points in Britain (Ferrari race review)
matt90
14th July 2010, 0:33
I agree that Alonso’s penalty can’t be compared to spa 08. In that event Hamilton gave the place back (even if it was briefly) and so he acknowledged he’d done something wrong. Plus, during the next lap he at one point dropped back behind Raikkonen by quite some way- even though that wasn’t intentional it put him back to a similar position to the one he was in originally. (And I still maintain that Kimi gained an advantage himself by running wide at one point on his last lap, but anyway…). Alonso was foolish to not immediately recognise his error and give the place back, regardless of whether he was forced off the road. It was a silly thing to do, to carry on knowing he would have to give the place back anyway- which maybe suggests he didn’t give the place back until he was told to in the hope that Kubica might retire anyway, but without anticipating he would receive a penalty. By being in front of Kubica he disadvantaged him for several laps- and the fact that Kubica retired should be irrelevant to that. The same would have been true in spa if Hamilton had simply carried his advantage through the following corners, as he did in France as Keith pointed out.
Patrickl
14th July 2010, 1:33
Raikkonen retired in Spa 2008 too. Hamilton still got his penalty.
Someone suggested that Ferrari were trying to cheat. That they hoped to drag along the debate about the penalty long enough so they could take a drive through and still finish ahead of Kubica.
To be honest, that makes a whole lot more sense than assuming that Alonso and Ferrari don’t understand the rules.
Especially after them being so vocal about how breaking the rules would benefit drivers.
BasCB
14th July 2010, 19:13
But it would make a lot more sense to let Kubica by immediately (and not get a drive trough penalty in the first place), wouldn’t it?
After not letting him by immediately, i agree it makes sense for the team to strech it as far as possible to make a gap to kubica and the guys behind. Bad luck when they did not go in immediately after the penalty was dealt, before the SC went out.
Oliver
14th July 2010, 9:02
After leaving Ferrari Todt forgot to tell Domenicali, that the “button” that says, “over rule stewards”, which used to run from Ferrari’s pit wall, to Mosley’s office, has now been re routed to customer care.
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
14th July 2010, 1:07
As soon as the incident happened, Alonso was on his radio telling Ferrari that Kubica had forced him off. He knew that the BBC would pick up the first incoming out outgoing radio transmission from his car, and he was very defensive about it. It seems Ferrari decided that if Hamilton could get away with passing the safety car relatively unscathed, they could too. However, they appear to have been unaware they were playing Russian roulette (ironically with Kubica and not his Russian team-mate) and got the stewarding equivalent of a bullet to the brainpan.
That have naught to blame but themselves.
Scribe (@scribe)
14th July 2010, 1:47
True, but it’s still incredible if they thought they could get away with it, scarcley belivable.
They were told to give the place back well before the retirement so the drive through may well have been for ignoring orders.
What were Ferrari thinking, how can they possibly have thought they’d get away with it, why did they ignore race controll, it’s completley amazing that no one in Ferrari couldn’t muster the most basic logic.
Something is badly wrong with that team at the mo, basic basic mistakes like that would never have been made under Todt.
Patrickl
14th July 2010, 10:56
Or maybe they did this on purpose hoping to get ahead far enough to negate the drive through (like Hamilton had in Valencia).
Jake
14th July 2010, 1:25
i have been thinking the same about the alonso incident since it happened. The hamilton incident in magny-cors showed that the standard penalty for overtaking unfairly is a drive-through and the giving back of a place is not a punishment but merely a prevention of the penalty. So in my opinion, even if kubica had not retired, Alonso should still have been handed the drive-through after not giving the place back immediately or soon after
Pinball - roadography.com
14th July 2010, 2:40
From the Gamesradar review the upcomming F1 game sounds good. The only thing I don’t get is the colours of the game. All the screenshots to date all the colours seem washed out, or dirty, and Formula 1 is neither washed out or dirty, it’s bright and in your face, and the colours in the game should reflect that.
KNF
14th July 2010, 4:01
The colour balance does look a bit off, like in DIRT 2 or GRID, it actually looks like it’s being seen through a very strong lens filter or polarized visors/sunglasses…
matt90
14th July 2010, 21:36
Perhaps the realisim isn’t good enough to support brighter, more vibrant colours without the game looking too arcade-like. Washing out the colour makes it look more like a cinematic trick and as though it’s not too far removed from real life, whereas it actually fails to replicate F1 and simply looks a bit bland.
Patrickl
14th July 2010, 10:59
Yeah, they really should drop the filmic look for an F1 game.
I’m wondering though, can’t you change the colours in GRID? Not in front of my TV (and PS3) right now (and is has been a while since I played the game), but I think there was a setting in GRID to change the colors back to normal.
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
14th July 2010, 3:09
We all learned lessons the hard way from the USF1 farce. Sixteen million might sound like an extortionate amount, but one million dollars doesn’t go nearly as far as it did a decade ago. Bernie no doubt wants to safeguard the sport against another non-entry acquiring a grid place and then squandering it, particularly if there was another, more worthy entry that went wanting.
gDog
14th July 2010, 4:26
I’m not sure what the details are, but if it’s a bond and it’s returned after successfully completing the first season (i.e. competing all races barring exceptional circumstances, e.g. ash clouds grounding all planes, or the factory being fire bombed by an opposing new team’s boss as he begins to regret a wager made at the start of the season) then I don’t think it’s unreasonable. It should help eliminate any wannabes that haven’t fully sorted their **** out. Although in the face of $40M budgets it might be a little steep (40%!).
DGR-F1
14th July 2010, 13:29
This has prompted me into thinking about other related areas:
1. FOM and FIA are pushing for an extra team on the grid, but what sort of encouragement is it when the first battle is to find the entrance fee – yet again FOM and FIA are showing total ignorance of the world financial recessesion.
2. So we have 26 cars entered, a nice full grid, and during Qualifying we have the 107% rule, which might knock out 2 or 3 cars from actually racing….
3. So what happens next? Are the teams then ‘fined’ for producing cars that break the agreement and don’t race? Are they sent home? If they are fined that leaves them less money for R&D, testing, engineers, drivers etc, so are bound to fail it again next race – a waste of entry fee…..
4. This also leaves us with FOM and FIA breaking their commitment to the fans to have bigger and fuller grids, doesn’t it?
5. So we have a situation after half a season where one of the smaller, newer teams consistently fails to get its cars above the 107%. Will Bernie tell them to go away? Another wasted entry fee in Bernie’s pocket…..
6. And we have a possible situation where 13 teams cannot always provide a full grid of 26 cars. So will FOM and FIA allow a 14th team, or a 15th to be able to fill the grid? Won’t this lead to maybe a 4 part Qualifying to sort the losers from the real losers? How far does this go?
7. Can anybody say how this was all handled the last time the 107% rule was introduced?
gDog
15th July 2010, 0:10
Thats a good point, I wasn’t considering the 107% rule. Without that the 107% the bond seems somewhat reasonable for sorting the wheat from the chaff. But if the new teams were to be penalised and foreit the bond for not making the 107% then thats pretty rough and will definitely not encourage new teams.
All speculation on the details of how it would be implemented at this point though.
I’ve got to say it’s pretty tough understand “Bernie logic” at times. Either he wants new teams or he doesn’t!
Scalextric
14th July 2010, 3:24
One disappointment for me this weekend was the lack of an official launch for the US Austin GP 2012 as had been previously forecast. It seems to have disappeared into the sagebrush.
Well, not entirely. Some links to old articles with little new content have appeared at http://www.fullthrottleproductionslp.com/index.html and one can sign up for updates.
The auto-response emails read:
1)
Thank you for contacting Full Throttle Productions, L.P. and the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix (TM). Due to the overwhelming response from fans and media around the world we will respond to your email as soon as possible.
We look forward to seeing you in Austin, Texas in 2012 for the return of Formula 1 to the United States.
2)
Thank you for your interest in securing tickets to attend the return of the Formula 1 United States Grand Prixâ„¢ to the US. We are equally as excited as you that Austin, Texas will host the Formula 1 United States Grand Prixâ„¢ from 2012 through 2021. This milestone project has been in the works for several years and has involved significant collaboration between Formula One Management and Full Throttle Productions, LP.
We have placed your name in our “I Want Tickets!” database and will be launching a project website within the next week or so to keep all interested parties up to speed. We will be sharing information about the Formula 1 United States Grand Prixâ„¢ in Austin as well as F1 Grand Prix events being held across the world. Over the course of the summer, we will be releasing information on our website and to our fans regarding:
* Site location;
* Master plan;
* Facility renderings; and
* Track layout.
We look forward to sharing more with you soon! Stay tuned…
Regards,
Full Throttle Management
Ben
14th July 2010, 5:30
I too was wondering where the announcement over the weekend was.
GPWeek published an interview with Tavo Hellmund on monday which makes it seem that things are still relatively under control. But still, no promised announcement does make me worry a little.
LewisC (@lewisc)
14th July 2010, 11:40
Was listening to the Joe Saward podcast the other day and it mentioned the Texas GP – he said that the team owners probably aren’t bothered about marketing presentations at this stage and would be more interested in hearing it when they’ve got the track map and a bit of data to play with…
Scalextric
14th July 2010, 17:03
Hmm. Interesting read. He was at Silverstone. Says he’s going to announce the site ‘this week’.
BasCB
14th July 2010, 19:20
During the exitement of the weekend (British GP) and the past couple of days (personal/work) i forgot about Austin GP.
Thanks you kept on it. It’s quite disappointing not to get any announcements about details during the Silverstone weekend as we were promised.
Or maybe the comments from Bernie about wanting a GP in New York as well were as much as we will get?
Interesting mail, so now they put up a database of interested people, get sponsors based on that and build the actual track? Interesting investment scheme!
I hope this “over the course of the summer” will be sooner rather than later.
f1yankee
14th July 2010, 5:00
So why didn’t they?
why didn’t race control immediately make a formal order, rather than wasting time with suggestions and opinions. by the time the order was issued, it was impossible to comply.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
14th July 2010, 8:35
Because it’s the stewards who issue penalties. Alonso was penalised for ‘cutting the corner and gaining an advantage’. Relinquishing the position to Kubica would have removed the advantage.
And, let’s be clear on this point, it was immediately obvious that he had transgressed. He had all four wheels off the track when he went past Kubica.
We should also remember that after Spa two years ago McLaren were told they shouldn’t even have approached Whiting for his opinion. It now seems teams are encouraged to do that, something we also saw last year:
Now the FIA decides F1 teams can talk to race control after all. Maybe.
graigchq
14th July 2010, 8:56
in order for the race to be fair, regardless of what Alonso thought to himself, he should have given the place back. It’s obvious he was quicker, so he could of overtaken again, and if not, then finishing behind kubica would have been better than where he DID end up.
I liken this to Button, who was clearly faster than Rosberg, but did he risk all and ruin his afternoon trying to force his way past in anger? No.. he took the points and that was that – alonso could learn from this, being so far behind in the championship
f1yankee
14th July 2010, 11:15
do you think this chain of events is possible in another major series?
Ads21
14th July 2010, 13:34
F1 yankee is spot on. F1’s system of penalties has been shown to be a joke many times in recent years, not least the last two race.
Firstly they seem to take years over ever decision when dithering and delay can dramtically change the impact of any decision that is finally made. “And, let’s be clear on this point, it was immediately obvious that he had transgressed” Then why did it take until the lap before Kubica retired for a formal order to come through? The same with Rosberg in Singapore 2008 and countless other decisions which took a long time despite being no-brainers.
Second there is a complete imflexibility to the regulations so punishments can be completely disproportionate to the offence. As with Hamilton France or Belgium 2008 or Alonso on Sunday. The best example though was Schumacher this year in Monaco when he used an ambiguity in the rules to pass Alonso, the move was probably just illegal but a 25 sec penalty was ludicrous. What would possibly be wrong with the stewards giving him a sufficient time penalty to have him classified behind Alonso but lose no more places? or in the case of Hamilton or Alonso once the other driver retired a time penalty which wasn’t unreasonable? I know the rules currently wouldn’t allow this and thats why the stewards need to be given more flexibility.
DGR-F1
14th July 2010, 15:08
It seems more like ‘Race Control can approach the teams and give its opinion’. So Ferrari were probably so surprised that Old Charlie spoke to them they didn’t listen to what he said…..
BasCB
14th July 2010, 19:24
Ferrari was instructed to give the place back repeatedly from directly after the incident until it was to late (see link to autosport article in the roundup). When Ferrari did not do as instructed by RC, it had to be investigated by the stewards with the only logical penalty of a drive through.
Nutritional
14th July 2010, 6:17
I’m getting really tired of listening to Ferrari.
Dan Thorn (@dan-thorn)
14th July 2010, 8:18
What disappoints me is that Ferrari didn’t even tell Alonso that Charlie suggested he should give the place back. Even if they thought they could find a way out of it, at the end of the day Fernando’s the guy out on the track and would have been more than capable of making his own decision.
Steph90 (@steph90)
14th July 2010, 10:09
I share the same feeling.
I know Alonso should have just given it back immediately but I don’t blame him too much. It’s the last thing a driver wants to do and he asked his team so he left it to them and got on with racing. There were two examples of this last year, Button at Valencia waited for his team to tell him and Mark at Singapore (although by that point Glock was in the way so he gave Glock the position and Fernando).
Ferrari really badly let their driver down with waiting so long. They were caught out by circumstance but they after being told three times they should have just told Alonso.
graigchq
14th July 2010, 10:49
sorry.. but Fernando overtook a bit too aggressively, should kubica have backed off sooner? No, of course he shouldn’t, he didn’t “push” alonso wide, he was trying to get round the corner same as alonso, so what happened was fernando having to abort, which put him right in front of kubica on exit of the corner, and instead of following the rules and letting kubica past, he drove on as if he had made a successful overtaking manouvre.
Team should have told him immediately to give the place back, but in all fairness, he should have known that himself without any help from his team.
Dan Thorn (@dan-thorn)
14th July 2010, 12:30
All the great drivers push boundries. I dont think any of the top guys would have jumped back behind Kubica because they’re always going to belive they’re in the right. See Stephs examples – and also Suzuka 2005 when Alonso did the same thing with Klien, went on for a couple of laps, was then told to give the place back and he did so. They’re pretty much always going to push on unless theyre specifically told they have to give the place back.
Ads21
14th July 2010, 13:36
actually Alonso was told to give the place back by the team when he didn’t need to and it prob cost him a shot at the win. Maybe that was on his mind so they wanted a formal order
Ads21
14th July 2010, 13:37
oh and obv that comment was refering to 2005 before someone abuses me
BasCB
14th July 2010, 19:27
I think your right there.
Alonso drives the car, asks the team to say weather to “go on” or “give back” the team does inform him to give back. They made the big mistake. And then did not send him in immediately before the SC, but that was some bad luck in it as well.
graigchq
14th July 2010, 8:54
thought this story was worth a mention here:
http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns22436.html
Very interesting, especially the point about runnign this type of throttle trail in qualifying only and not during the race… if true, this will be on all the top-developed cars in the next few races
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
14th July 2010, 9:19
A similar story on Scarbs’ site was mentioned in the round-up a few days ago.
BasCB
14th July 2010, 19:30
But it’s interesting to hear Williams confirm they are already working on something like that with Cosworth as well.
Ads21 (@ads21)
14th July 2010, 20:46
“Michael would not elaborate but, with a wry smile, said that it was quite useful when Mark Webber took off over the back of Heikki Kovalainen in Valencia and gave everyone a good look at the bottom of the car!”
lol
ajokay
14th July 2010, 10:40
I’ve read and re-read it several times, but I still don’t get the Kobayashi joke :(
graigchq
14th July 2010, 10:46
KKK… seriously shouldn’t need any more explanation than that ;)
ajokay
14th July 2010, 10:53
Ahhh, there we go.
Steph90 (@steph90)
14th July 2010, 10:56
Thanks graigchq, I didn’t get it either.
James_mc (@james_mc)
14th July 2010, 12:00
Hahahahah! I get it now! :-D
Cacarella
14th July 2010, 14:42
I think the bottom line here is that nothing has actually changed in the FIA since Max Mosley left. We all get a warm and fuzzy feeling when we see the champions of yesteryear come out to act as neutral referees but in actuality, they are still confined to the rules and regulations set out by the FIA. Which BTW, are ridiculous.
That’s not to say that a drive through penalty is too harsh or too lenient, just that there are too many gray areas that have not and will not ever be corrected.
The rules don’t necessarily need changing, but the penalties need to be written in stone as it is this that people are frustrated with the most.
hawkfist
14th July 2010, 23:56
It’s not so much the neutral referee’s fault, it’s the fact it’s a different one with a different opinion at each race. Just pick one and stick with him if you want any real chance at consistency.
BasCB
14th July 2010, 19:36
From what the FOM companies are doing the last couple of weeks and what Bernie is saying, it looks like there will be quite a big fight before the next concord agreement comes to light.
Getting at the teams for using their sponsorship logo’s in the garages, then blocking them from having their lorries in the paddock area. Bernies comments on wanting a separate body to agree on rules separately from both FOTA and FIA. Now this wonderfull idea of re-introducing the entry fee to the FOM. This last one is particularly bad combined with the 107% rule, as it would undoubtebly fall to FOM if the team would not be regularly able to compete (have their cars within 107%).
Mitchel Policz
18th August 2010, 23:37
This is a pretty cool blog here! I just bookmarked it.
I have got a poker related fan page over at Facebook. If you wanted to check it out: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Poker-Players-Only/136818223026737